What makes the Beatles icons?

Their songs are melodic in tone and catchy and perfectly sung. In large, they are perfectly produced. They have literally done it all. They themselves were "bubble gum pop," they were lightweight pop. They were radio friendly and forgettable and that's pretty catchy and fun to listen to. Then they became these all of a sudden adult contemporary artists; they were really putting out stuff that was adult in nature but just as melodic and just as catchy. People young and old can appreciate songs original in words. They just progressed and they did everything; the artsy stuff and then hard rock and they used synthesizers in 69 and on their last record. They are the number one pop group of all time. They used synthesizers and people today are using them. The Beatles have done so much in such a short time. Their art was on the album cover, their art was in the music, and their art was in the way they dress. That became the youth's culture.

They did as much as they could. They wrote music, sang, played guitar, piano, drums, and bass; all the instruments they could play. At that time, it was still people playing other people's songs. There were songwriters who were paid to the write songs, and there were companies who would crank out songs. But the Beatles were usually playing their own material, so that's important.